A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints (Year B)
November, 7, 2021
Text: John 11:32-44
I speak to you in the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
A little over a week ago, I came across an article on Facebook from The Atlantic, entitled, “My Church Doesn’t Know What to Do Anymore.” The title immediately caught my attention. So, I clicked on the link to the article and began to read, and I quickly discovered that it was written by an Episcopal priest named Elizabeth Felicetti, who serves as the rector at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia—a small parish, probably very similar in size to our parish here at Holy Spirit.
As I made my way through the article, I found myself nodding in agreement to so much of what the author wrote. She was describing her experience of the pandemic as the priest of a small, Episcopal parish, and although her circumstances have been slightly different, she expressed many of the fears and concerns that I, along with so many of my clergy colleagues in the Episcopal Church, have been struggling with over the past several months—especially since we began returning to in-person worship on Sunday mornings. This was confirmed for me late last week when I had the opportunity to go to Camp McDowell for a short, clergy retreat with other priests and deacons from around the diocese. Everyone I talked to was feeling the same way—overwhelmed, frustrated, and uncertain about the future. It didn’t matter what size parish they came from. All of us were wrestling with the same concerns and asking ourselves the same questions. When will things finally return to normal? When will our people feel the need to come back to church? What are we supposed to do in the meantime when it’s a struggle to find enough volunteers and leaders to help sustain our ministries?
These aren’t just that I’ve been asking. These are questions that people are struggling with in every corner of the church.
There’s no doubt that 2020 was hard, but it was manageable. As a church, we knew what we needed to do in order to keep people safe and healthy. We wore masks, and we socially distanced ourselves. We stayed at home for weeks on end and participated in worship online, trying our best to stay connected. Even though we didn’t like it, we did what we needed to do and what we were asked to do by our bishop.
In many ways, I think 2021 has been much more difficult than 2020. Now, instead of learning how to do new things like live-stream our worship services on Sunday mornings and continue the ministries of the church during a global pandemic, we’re left wondering what to do about those beloved members of our parishes who we miss terribly—those who left at the beginning of the pandemic and haven’t returned. We’re left wondering how to convince our people that coming together again in person is important for the health and well-being of our parishes. And, we’re left wondering what all of this will mean for the future of the church. How will we continue on when we’ve lost so much over the past two years?
Here, at Holy Spirit, we have new families attending worship each week, which is wonderful, and I’m incredibly thankful for that. But, to be perfectly honest, as excited and thankful as I am that we have new families coming to church, I’m also grieving the loss of our brothers and sisters who’ve left and haven’t come back yet. I—like so many of my clergy colleagues—am left wondering, “What do we do?” “Is there anything we can do other than continue doing what we’ve always done and hang onto the hope of a better day?”
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not trying to complain or point fingers, and I’m certainly not trying to blame anyone for where we are right now as a parish. What I’m trying to say is that this is a tough time for the church as a whole—and for church leaders everywhere—as we’re trying to “pick up the pieces” and recover from the past two years and hopefully begin a new chapter of our shared life together as a community of faith.
I want to acknowledge that this morning.
And, I want to share with you how I’ve been feeling and give voice to this overwhelming weight that’s been sitting on the shoulders of so many over the past several months. It’s been a heavy burden to bear. I feel it most days, and I think some of you probably feel the same way. Or, if you don’t feel it about the church, perhaps you feel it in other parts of your life. If you do, please know that you’re not alone. Our lives have changed and been affected in countless ways since March of last year, but thankfully, we don’t have to go through this time of recovery by ourselves. We have each other to lean on as we plan a way forward, and most importantly, we have the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit as our guide.
Today, in the life of the Church, we’re celebrating a very special day—All Saints’ Day—one of the seven principal feasts of the liturgical year. On this day, we remember the lives of all the saints who have come before us in the faith. I’m not just talking about those “big name” saints like St. Francis or St. Andrew. I’m talking about all the saints, including those ordinary men and women in our lives who’ve touched us in some way. If you think back in your life, you can probably name at least a few of them—friends, family members, pastors, teachers, or even complete strangers. They weren’t perfect by any means, and they experienced struggle and hardship just like the rest of us. But, despite their challenges and imperfections, they left us with an example to live by. They taught us how to love others as God has called us to love, and they taught us to be resilient—to hold on to hope, even in the midst of challenging times.
It’s customary on All Saints’ Day to remember in our prayers our loved ones who’ve recently died and passed into the nearer presence of God. We do this because our Christian faith teaches us that death isn’t the end. Although we mourn for those whom we love but see no longer, we’re comforted in knowing that death is only the beginning of new life with God. As we often pray at the beginning of the burial office in The Book of Common Prayer, “I am resurrection and I am life, says the Lord. Whoever has faith in me shall have life, even though he die. And everyone who has life, and has committed himself to me in faith, shall not die for ever.”
My friends, we belong to God, and nothing—not even death—can change that. We, along with all the saints who’ve come before us, are the Lord’s possession, now and forever. Amen. The raising of Lazarus, the story that we heard just a few moments ago from the Gospel of John, is a vivid reminder of that. Like Lazarus, who was dead and bound up, alone in the tomb, I think it’s safe to say that we in the church have experienced our own kind of death and burial over the past two years. But also like Lazarus, Jesus is here with us to raise us up and unbind us from our fears and feelings of hopelessness. In Christ, there is nothing that’s broken, nothing that’s been cast down, that can’t be raised up and made whole again.
I’m going to do my best to remember this and carry it with me in the weeks and months to come as we continue to recover from this terrible pandemic. I hope you’ll join me. Will it be difficult at times? Yes. Will the church look different than it did before the pandemic? Probably. But, is it impossible to come back from? No, it isn’t. The God who loves us is still with us, breathing new life into the Body of Christ. Today, of all days, is a good example of that as we celebrate the feast of all the saints and prepare to welcome two new saints into the household of God—Ben and Cara Austin—who’ve been asking for months to be baptized. Well, today’s the day. Today, we’ll welcome Ben and Cara as fellow members of the Body of Christ, and we’ll join with them in renewing our own baptismal vows, remembering who we are and to whom we belong. We’ll recommit ourselves to the work of proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ to the world—the Good News that, in Christ, death and darkness have been defeated once and for all and that new life is always possible with God. Amen.
A video of this sermon is available below, beginning at the 25:30 mark.
The Rev. Eric Mancil 